[Usability]Re: [HIG] Label alignment

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Wed, 2002-08-07 at 16:01, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> The last nearly definitive notice I can find on the matter of label
> alignments is:
> 
>   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-February/msg00097.html
> 
> There right-alignment is favored - as it was (by those involved in usability)
> since even before Sun joined.
> 
> Now I look at the HIG and I see left-alignment advised.
> 
> When and why did this change? Was anyone even aware of the change?

The section that advises this was recently drafted by Coleen, and
integrated by me... so yes, I was aware it was in there, even if nobody
else was :)  Perhaps Coleen can explain why she favoured left rather
than right alignment in the end... IIRC she's aware of the earlier
discussions we had about this on the lists a few months ago.

(In her defence, the guidelines don't suggest a blanket use of
left-alignment, however, they do suggest right-alignment where the
labels are of sufficiently uneven length that big gaps would appear).

Note also that I fully hope and expect Coleen's sections (along with
everybody else's) to be subject to a final rigorous review and editing
before we go live with a 1.0 HIG release... however it seemed like the
easiest way to make them available for this process was just to convert
and integrate them for now.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems